TRADE DEADLINE WILL DETERMINE UJIRI'S DIRECTION FOR RAPTORS

Underachieving team fielding offers for just about everyone on the roster

If the weeks leading up to the NBA trade deadline were supposed to provide a final assessment of the Toronto Raptors, they only ended up confirming what has long been evident: something ain't right.

The Raptors fell five games below .500 on Jan. 2, and more than a month later they are, at 25-30, still there. A dispiriting long homestand last month was followed by more uneven play and frustrating losses. The defence that was supposed to be the strength of the team remains buttery soft.

But despite the disappointing vibes — other than the COVID season when they were stuck in Tampa, the Raptors have never underachieved like this since Masai Ujiri's arrival.

The team still has individual assets that are considered prime trade targets ahead of Thursday's deadline. So, will the front office be as busy as league observers seem to expect? Will they tinker? Will they smash things to pieces? Some factors to consider:

A SELLER'S MARKET

There is much to like about O.G. Anunoby. Great defender, shoots the ball well, and is such a good complementary piece that he could be added to a contender without any worries about fit.

But even allowing that trade rumours are put out into the open for a reason, it has been startling to hear the kinds of packages that are being floated to fetch him. Multiple first-round picks or young prospects, or some combination of each, for a player who, in his sixth NBA season, has never been more than a third option on offence. Even if Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster place great value on Anunoby's ability to impact the game on both ends of the floor, could they turn down the chance to turn him into a haul of assets? There's no way they wouldn't still have use for the 25-year-old in the coming years, but if someone offers you 75 bucks for your 50-dollar bill, you take it.

THE FRED CONUNDRUM

The Kyle Lowry parallels with the man who became his successor are a little eerie. Undersized point guard, effective scorer in bursts, crafty defender, loads of basketball smarts. Also like Lowry, not a player who is going to blow anyone away with raw athleticism. The comparison is apt in another way: the Raptors will place greater value on being in the Fred Vanvleet business than any other team in the league. He's a leader and a key connection to the championship-winning team, and while Ujiri is no dewy-eyed sentimentalist, that stuff matters.

Keeping Lowry didn't really make any basketball sense at the end of the 2021 season, but Ujiri wasn't willing in the end to simply raffle him off for the best available offer. Dealing Vanvleet at this point, for what would likely be a limited return given his pending free agency, would not be a fitting end to his time in Toronto.

THE COACH QUESTION

There was a point in 2020, when the Raptors were mounting an impressive title defence even without Kawhi Leonard, that Nick Nurse would have been on any short list of best coaches in the NBA. He's still on most of them, but the resumé has taken a couple of hits. Last season's playoff series against Philadelphia, which started and ended with blowout losses, was not a coaching master class, and this season he's been unable to turn an admittedly flawed roster into a consistently competitive team. It wasn't that long ago that Nurse seemed to have an endless runway in Toronto, with his side hustle as the head coach of the men's national team and his occasional gigs playing guitar with local rock bands.

If the Raptors are on the verge of foundational roster changes, it's at least possible that a coaching change comes with it. Especially if the coach isn't all that interested in a multi-year rebuild.

WHAT NEXT?

All of the above are really part of a larger question about what Ujiri intends to do with this roster. Just a few months ago, this was a team that won 48 games and had a gem of a rookie in Scottie Barnes. They lacked the top-end stars to be an elite team, but Ujiri had already shown that a good team can become a great team quickly, and in the NBA it's always possible that a superstar might suddenly become available. Give it time, and someone will demand a trade from the Nets. The idea in Toronto was to keep improving and see what happens. It didn't take.

And so now, the question is whether Ujiri wants to try again with a slightly altered roster with many of the same pieces, or set the blueprint on fire and start over. The prospect of a total Raptors rebuild has been floating around for the decade since Ujiri took over Toronto's basketball operations, and he's always resisted it.

He stuck with Demar Derozan and Lowry for years, avoided tanking, and eventually won a title without ever having done the teardown that had long been expected. I still don't think he's likely to do it. But if he gets a bunch of offers that he can't refuse? It might be finally time that he tried.